Ebony Moon
by Sanraita
Summary: SEQUEL TO SYZYGY! Max makes another prophecy, and it's just as confusing as the first. And what's with all the terrorist attacks? And among all this, the couples are beginning to fight. Can they come together to save the world, or is the world doomed? FAX
1. Chapter 1

Here it is!! The sequel to Syzygy!! *starts playing music*

**Amazing, I thought I'd procrastinate and probably never write it. But I did! Aren't you proud? Lol.**

**For those of you who clicked on this despite my warning in the summary, this is the sequel to my other story, Syzygy, and you should definitely go read it first, and save me a crapload of explaining. Okay?**

**Um, do I have anything to say…nope, don't think so…and I promise there won't be anyone else joining the flock. Madysyn and Regan will be going their own way soon, as well, but they'll pop up from time to time. **

_**Ebony Moon **_**Chapter One**

**Max POV**

So now my flock and I were in Piquetberg. The former home of the now-not-existing third School of Africa. We'd blown it up, of course. Now we were sitting in the bush around the smoking crater, trying to decide where to go next. We still had South America, Australia, Asia, and Antarctica. I was _not _looking forward to Antarctica. Ice, snow, penguins, not to mention memories of last time we were there. And did I mention the snow? And the _cold_…Why couldn't the whitecoats have skipped Antarctica and put three in Hawaii and Mexico or something?

"Australia! There's kangaroos there!" Nudge squeaked.

"Wouldn't Asia make more sense? Up to Asia now, down to Australia, then east to South America, and then Antarctica. That saves us the most time so we're not flying back and forth and all over the place." Shannon suggested.

"Yeah, no kidding." Natalca agreed.

"I think so, too. Sorry Nudge. Asia first, then Australia." I told her.

"Okay Max." Nudge agreed easily.

I brought out the list, wondering exactly where in Asia we were supposed to be going.

"Kathmandu, Nepal. Dacca, Bangladesh. Neyon, Mongolia. Has anybody heard of any of those cities?" I looked up.

I was pretty sure Nepal was by China somewhere, and Bangladesh was by India. Mongolia…wasn't that a desert?

"Kathmandu is the capital of Nepal, Max. Nepal is sandwiched between India and China. Dacca is the capital, as well, I think. Bangladesh is right beside India to the east. Mongolia is farther north, right above China. Can't say I've ever heard of Neyon, though." Shannon volunteered.

"So Kathmandu is the closest." I checked.

Shannon, Natalca, Madysyn, and Fang nodded at me like I was retarded.

"Just checking." I defended myself testily. "Now let's go. We have a _long _flight ahead of us."

_And not enough time. Take a plane, Maximum._

_Are you kidding me? _Another _one? _I whined.

_Yes, Maximum. Do you need convincing? _It gave me a small shock of pain. A warning.

_Fine, we'll take a plane. _I gave in.

The next day at 9:00 pm we were in Kathmandu. The flight here was boring and claustrophobic and _LONG _to say the least. But I consoled myself by saying that it was over, thank god.

But now I had to find us a hotel to stay in. Great.

"How about how about that one?" Fang suggested, pointing at a large building that was evidently a hotel. Perfect. We quickly went over there, and I booked us a few rooms. Walking up the stairs, I had this really weird sensation. It was a tingling in the back of my brain, almost like a sugar buzz, but different. A sense of foreboding and wariness. A sense I didn't understand. Whatever.

I flipped the room keys to the normal various couples and then one to Angel, Gazzy and Nudge, and then Fang and I gratefully retreated into our private room, the very best part of it being the _silence_. The bad thing about having a group that large is that someone is always talking. I was beginning to get a headache, and I suspected Fang was the same. The weird tingle in my skull was fading, but not entirely gone. I decided it was almost as irritating as the brain attacks the Voice could give me, just not as painful. I heaved a deep sigh and fell backwards onto the bed, closing my eyes. Fang was not as dramatic and just sat on the other side, leaning back on the headboard. After about five minutes of blissful silence, he turned the TV on. I opened my eyes and glared at him.

"What?"

"It was nice and quiet before."

"Quiet and _boring_." Fang told me.

I sighed and sat beside him, watching as he flipped through many different shows before settling on the news, an explosion having caught his eye. My eye, too. I leaned forward slightly. A decent explosion was always material for a good show. Fang turned the volume up, and the reporter's calm voice became the only sound I could hear in the room.

"-just eleven hours ago. Many innocent people were killed, many families ripped apart with grief. Authorities say that most people in the building were killed instantaneously and would have experienced no pain, but those many floors above or below the explosion or others outside on the streets and sidewalks were not so lucky. Bodies have been found impaled with metal, wood, or cement. Some have crushed skulls, and many broken bones. Some bodies are burned beyond recognition, including several young children. Everyone inside the building was killed, and that number is estimated at 763. Thousands more outside the building were also killed, pushing the already gruesome death toll to a sickening 9852 dead. Police will continue to investigate, and we will keep you updated on anything they find. In the meantime, we will all grieve for the loss of these people's lives, and the loss of a world-renowned and famous structure, Canada's CN Tower."

My jaw dropped as I turned to Fang.

"9852 people killed." I breathed.

He didn't need to say anything. His eyes said enough. "It's horrible."

I turned back to the screen, but it was already on commercial break. And I couldn't help but wonder how different my flock was from whoever decided to plant a bomb in the CN Tower. Because that's obviously what it was. I'd seen enough explosions to recognize a bomb. Every one of those being ones _my flock _had set off to destroy Schools. We thought we were ridding the world of those horrible scientists that ruined lives and created horrible monsters like Erasers, but really, not everybody in those buildings knew about the experiments. We had probably taken countless lives of good-hearted, clueless people. But we weren't solely doing it to kill people…were we? We did it to kill the whitecoats…who, in the end, were just humans. Twisted, horrible, vile humans, but did they deserve to die for it? And how many were 'brainwashed' like Serena?

_Max, stop this right now. _The Voice suddenly ordered, scaring the hell out of me.

But…

_You're reasoning does make sense, but if they live, and continue doing what they do, more innocent babies will be mutated, like you. There is no other way to do it. The world will end if you don't, Maximum. _ The Voice told me firmly.

_Fine. _

"And it's probably a terrorist attack." I muttered.

"Yeah."

Just then our door opened and Iggy walked in, Shannon following quietly.

"Did you see the news?" Iggy asked softly.

"We sure did." I said.

"Damn terrorists." Shannon muttered.

"I agree." I told her.

"It's funny to think that I stood in that exact tower, jumping on the glass floor and laughing like the little kid I was. It never crossed my mind that a terrorist could bomb it while I was inside. So naïve." Shannon shook her head.

"We just wanted to know if you'd seen it. Now we're going to bed." Iggy said, and then both of them left.

Then next morning, everyone was talking about the CN Tower. Or the ruins that used to be the CN Tower. And I don't just mean the flock, although we were talking about it too. I mean every single person we passed in the hotel, everyone around us in the restaurant, everyone outside, and even the birds in the air. No, not the birds. But everyone _else _was. I was sick of the words CN Tower, bomb, explosion, and terrorist by the time we finally hit the sky. Now we had to find the School, bomb it, and then start on the journey to Dacca, Bangladesh.

"Split into two groups." I commanded.

We were getting good at that. My group consisted of Natalca, J.J., Gazzy, Nudge, and I. Fang went with Shannon, Iggy, and Angel. Madysyn ran on the ground below me, and Regan below Fang. In human form, of course. The last thing I needed was questions about a shape shifting panther and wolf. My group flew over one half of the city, trying to scan every tightly packed building before we decided it was damn near hopeless.

_Maximum, you need to be more independent. _The Voice sighed.

I take it that you're going to help me?

_It's not in the city. It's three miles west. _And it said no more.

But it was enough.

Angel, it's three miles west of the city! Tell Fang and come meet us…uh…give me a moment.

"Natalca, where are they?" I asked impatiently.

"Directly east, going north."

Tell Fang to turn to the west and fly until you get to us.

_Okay, Max._

Five minutes later, I heard wing beats, and the rest of the group joined us. We picked up the pace and sped west. Two miles to go…one and half…one…half a mile…there! I could see it, a low white building.

"Don't bother taking cover, there's no cover anyway. Ig, Gaz, do your thing." I commanded.

Just as a fairly large group of Erasers popped out of the building and flew towards us. Behind them, the boys' bomb exploded the building, meaning all we had to deal with was…thirty Erasers. Easy-peasy.

After fifteen minutes of kicking, punching, mind controlling, fire controlling, levitating, and various other methods of death, all the Erasers were dead. Like usual. We were a pretty strong group.

"Okay, troops, on to Bangladesh!" I called. "Only eleven Schools left!"

My internal GPS told me when I was going south-west, and we were on our way. _Again_. Everyone started talking again. Or arguing, in Natalca and Shannon's case.

"What is it now, you two?" I sighed.

"Nothing." They sighed together, refusing to say anything when I glared at them.

A couple more wing beats, and that weird feeling from yesterday returned. The tingling, sugar rush-like buzz in the back of my skull. I unconsciously rubbed at it, as if that would make it go away. Fang, as observant as ever, noticed.

"What's wrong with your head?"

"Other than the fact that there's a Voice in it?" I asked.

"Yes, Max, other than that."

"Well, I just have this really weird tingling in the back of my skull. It's kinda annoying." I told him.

At his expression, I quickly said, "I don't think it's anything bad. Nothing to worry about."

His face said he would worry no matter what I said. I rolled my eyes at him. But an hour later, the tingling had intensified, and was giving me a headache, and making it hard to think. And fly straight, apparently, as my wing bumped into Fang's. He looked at me in alarm.

"Max, what's wrong?" he demanded.

"Nothing, I'm fine." I lied.

"You're lying."

"So?" I said childishly.

His eyes narrowed. "Tell me what's wrong. Is it the buzzing in your head? We should stop and figure out how to make it go away."

I shook my head. Bad idea, it made the buzzing get louder.

"It's nothing, Fang. Just a stress-induced headache. Calm down, you worry too much." I told him.

"I don't want you dropping out of the sky, Max."

"I won't, Fang. You're making a big deal out of nothing." I rolled my eyes again.

He opened his mouth to argue, and then everything went black.

Not pitch black, like when you pass out. Black like a very dark night sky, an inky blackness. I didn't know where I was. I had to get back to the flock, I had to get out of _here_!

And then a burning flame burst up, right in my face. But this fire was not like normal fire, not the fire Shannon controlled or the fire we made in our camps to cook. This fire was blood red in the middle, and then bright, bright orange everywhere else. If I watched closely, I could see every other colour I could think of dancing and streaking the tongues of flame, and disappearing as fast as they appeared. It was beautiful. I did nothing but stare at it, transfixed in its gorgeous colours and dancing tongues of flame. Slowly, I felt the reasonable half of my mind float away, leaving my mind slow and quiet as I continued to stare at the fire. As I gazed right into its crimson centre, my mouth opened of its own accord, and words spilled out without my brain telling them to.

"Blood runs down a marble staircase,

Blood spills in a deadly race,

Blood stains the ground from a fatal fall,

Blood drips from the sandy wall,

Blood rains down from the black night,

Blood obscures everything from sight.

And on the night of the ebony moon,

the world will drown in red blood."

My slow brain forgot the words as soon as I said them. Once my mouth closed again, the crackling of the fire turned into an angry roar, and the beautiful flame turned into a raging inferno, sweeping up from the ground and surrounding me, inches from my face. It blotted out the night sky until all I could see was fire, fire, and more fire, everywhere….I felt myself slipping away, my consciousness fading…

And then I heard voices. Calling the same thing over and over again. A name…my name? Yes, Max, that was me. Suddenly my mind snapped back to me, and the fire and the black night disappeared.

Slowly I began to feel my body again, the hard ground under my back and the sand between my fingers. I blinked fuzzily, turning the blurry figure in front of me into a very worried Fang.

"Max? Max! Are you okay?"

I heard feet hit the ground, and more faces crowded into view. The rest of my flock. Just as worried as Fang.

"What the hell happened? What was that?" Iggy demanded.

I sat up with wide eyes, looking at Fang. "The last thing I saw was you opening your mouth to argue with me, and then everything disappeared, and there was a fire in front of me, and I started talking. I don't know what I said, but I know it was important…"

"Yeah, you fell out of the sky. I caught you, thankfully, and got you to the ground before you started talking." Fang told me.

"What did I say?" I asked eagerly and impatiently.

"Blood runs down a marble staircase,

Blood spills in a deadly race,

Blood stains the ground from a fatal fall,

Blood drips from the sandy wall,

Blood rains down from the black night,

Blood obscures everything from sight.

And on the night of the ebony moon,

the world will drown in red blood." Fang recited.

"I made another prophecy." I said flatly.

Everyone nodded solemnly.

"Max, what's an ebony moon?" Angel asked sweetly.

I looked at her. "I don't know, sweetie. I don't understand it any more than you do."

"Great." Iggy muttered tonelessly.

"Great." I echoed. "Any ideas what it means?"

Natalca glanced at Shannon. "Ebony moon?"

"Hell, don't look at me. It sounds like a name for something, but I don't know what." Shannon sighed.

"You know, it sounds like a series of catastrophes. Blood, blood, blood, and more blood. _And the night of the ebony moon, the world will drown in red blood._ That sounds like one final…destructive event that's going to kill the world." J.J. put in.

Everyone looked at him. That was pretty clever.

"You're good." I muttered. "Okay, so what exactly are the catastrophes? Are we supposed to stop them?"

"_Blood runs down a marble staircase…_Oh, I don't know." Gazzy frowned.

I stood up. "I don't know what it means. I don't get it. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to go to Bangladesh." I said with a smile.

The others grinned and followed me back into the sky.

"Is the buzzing gone?" Fang asked tightly.

"Yes, Fang." I said.

He visibly relaxed.

_Max, Regan has an idea. _Angel told me.

I glanced down at the chocolate wolf and smiled at the goofy grin he was giving me, his head craned up to look at me.

_Let's hear it. _I told Angel.

Here, I'll make a mind-link.

Cool, I get to hear the thoughts of a wolf! Then I was bombarded with thoughts and feelings and memories. I tried to shove everything aside, or at least not look at it, except for what Regan was directly thinking at me.

_The third line. _Blood stains the ground from a fatal fall. _The CN Tower just fell. I'd say there's blood on the ground. Could that be it?_

_Hey, maybe! Good thinking, Regan. Except its not in order. Unless we missed to catastrophes. That's possible. _

_That's not it, Max. _The Voice suddenly said, scaring me _again_.

_Who the hell was that?! _Regan demanded.

_The Voice, Regan, be quiet! _I ordered. _Voice, what do you mean? We're wrong?_

I got silence, as I suspected I would.

_That usually means I'm right. Sorry, Regan. It was a good idea, though. _I thought at Wolf-Boy.

I have one parting thought for you: that Voice is seriously creepy.

_Try living with it twenty-four seven. _I sighed. _Angel? We're done. _

Regan's mind disappeared, and I was once again down to only two people in my head.

So?

Oops, make that three.

_He thought maybe the CN Tower was the _fatal fall. _But the Voice said we were wrong. _I told Angel.

_Okay_.

Thinking about the prophecy, I had a strange sense of déjà vu. This felt a lot like when Madysyn told us the first prophecy, and we all gave ourselves headaches over it. And when we thought we had a line figured out in advance, we turned out to be wrong, and then got taken by surprise when the line actually happened. Usually surprised in a bad way. Maybe this time would be different. Maybe this time we could solve it…oh, who was I kidding? My subconscious was too tricky for eleven kids to decode. What sense does that make? _I _am making these prophecies! Shouldn't _I _understand them? What's the point of seeing the future if you can't even understand it? And I wasn't even _seeing _the future. I was…_speaking _the future.

_You have to work at it. Over time, you'll get better at it, and you'll get much clearer bits of the future, Maximum. It's too powerful and overwhelming a gift to be given just like that. _The Voice explained.

Anyone else notice how it didn't say much time, or _how _I'd get these 'much clearer bits of the future'? Yes? Good. Then I'm not just a pessimist.

**Tada! That's the first chapter. Please tell me of you liked it, or if I slaughtered it. **

**Today was my first day of school for the year. Joy! Not. I want my summer break back. **

***SanraitaFang***


	2. Chapter 2

All right, all right, so I'm probably the worst updater you know of. I get it. In approximately twenty reviews, I got told to update. Maybe I should…nah, I'll let my readers stew for a while.

**Kidding. Here it is.**

_**Ebony Moon **_**2**

**Max POV**

"Oh, god, shoot me now." Natalca moaned.

"I don't know about God, but I'd be willing to do the honours." Shannon groaned, staring angrily at the red and blue blinking sign that proclaimed the building to be "CLOSED". At least that's what we thought it said.

None of us were exactly fluent in Bangla, the official language of Bangladesh. We'd been flying for hours, and pretty much eventually dropped out of the sky simultaneously. My wings felt like lead, and my head was a cinderblock. Plus, my mind was a chaotic swirl of questions that desperately needed answers. All I wanted was to sit down somewhere safe, and talk to the Voice. But apparently that wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

"All right, let's find another hotel." I sighed, turning away from the door just as I heard a click and the squeak of hinges-desperately-in-need-of-oil moving.

I whirled around, and was faced with a tiny little man glaring out at me through the door, which he'd opened a crack. His eyes were small and narrow, and he didn't look very friendly. And on top of it all, he was firing foreign words at me in rapid succession. It didn't even seem like he was stopping for breath. Everything was run together and totally overwhelming.

I felt like I was the condemned prisoner and he was the firing squad.

"আপনি কি চান? আপনি কে? দূরে যান!" The man asked/shouted.

(A/N Yes, I am aware the lettering doesn't show up. I used an online translator, but the Bangla lettering isn't supported on Microsoft Word or FanFiction. Deal.)

"Um…" I said uselessly.

_আমরা একটি হোটেল প্রয়োজন বোধ করি। আপনি কি একটির জানেন যে মুক্ত__? Say it, Maximum. Now! _The Voice said urgently.

Hurriedly and messily I tried to replicate the sounds the Voice made in my head. It came out garbled and totally unrecognizable as I stumbled over the unfamiliar sounds, but the man's eyes lit up as he miraculously understood that I was speaking his language. Literally.

Quieter, slower, and friendlier, though still suspicious, he said, "সমস্ত হোটেল বন্ধ করা হয়। এইটি বাংলা ছুটির দিন আজ। কিছুইনা মুক্ত। দুঃখিত।."

Quickly the Voice told me what to say.

"আপনাকে, স্যার ধন্যবাদ জানান।." I repeated, turning away and walking back down the steps, the Flock slowly following me.

Behind us, I heard the door shut and deadbolts slide into place.

"What the hell?" A chorus of voices bombarded me.

Sighing, I told them all, "I didn't get a new power. I have no idea what I said. The Voice told me what to say, and I tried to repeat it. Give me a moment."

_What did he ask? What did I say?_ I demanded.

_He said, What do you want? Who are you? Go away! You said, We need a hotel. Do you know of any that are open? He told you that it was a Bangla holiday, nothing's open, sorry._

_Okay. Where'd you learn Bangla?_

I didn't expect an answer, and I didn't get one.

"It's a Bangla holiday. No hotels are open. It's a nice, comfy, cozy alley tonight. At home with the rats." I said solemnly.

Nudge shuddered at the word 'rats'. I grinned.

"Don't worry, Nudge, I'll protect you." Madysyn told Nudge wickedly.

The normally gentle African American girl gave the taller brunette a shove, making Madysyn stumble before she regained her balance and pushed Nudge back. I put up with them for a while, but then their laughing and yelling got to be too much.

I kneaded my forehead, and then suddenly adrenaline was running through my veins. I stood up straight and whirled to face the Eraser coming up beside me, my fists clenched and ready, face snarling.

But it was only Regan. Watching me with wide eyes, hands up in surrender, brows furrowed. Slowly, I dropped my arms to my sides and relaxed my face.

"S-Sorry, Regan. I don't know what that was. I don't know what's up with me lately." I shook my head as I apologized.

"That's fine, Max. I know you're stressed. And you have to have reflexes, when you live like we do. Never know who's sneaking up on you." He said, walking beside me.

I was silent for a moment, and then he broke the silence, saying thoughtfully, "I wish we had a TV handy. I want to find out a bit more about what happened to the CN Tower. It's kind of suspicious, don't you think?"

"Yeah, it is. But I think everything is suspicious. Ultra-paranoid-birdkid, remember?" I said ruefully.

"Yeah, not much different over here. Escaped runaway from the School? Check. Super weird family? Check. Reincarnated aunt? Check. Wolf DNA? Check. Paranoid? Quadruple check." Regan grinned wanly.

I laughed, and then called, "Okay, guys. We'll stop here."

I was standing at the entrance to an alley. There was garbage bags piled in one corner, which provided cover if we needed it, plus a Dumpster. At the back there was a brick wall, which would protect our backs, but we could still fly over it if we needed to escape. My little group of soldiers filed in and flopped in one of the corners, huddling together for warmth and comfort. I sank to the ground next to Fang, and he put his arms around me, hugging me to his side.

I closed my eyes, as did everyone else. We were all spent and totally exhausted. Sleep-deprived. Hungry…..I drifted off into a restless sleep, my dreams chaotic and senseless.

Then a soft yet urgent call broke through my dreaming, bringing me up into the land of the living. I opened my eyes, looking around, recognizing the voice and wondering what was going on. Not because Regan was calling my name, but because he was worried and concerned. He was calling to Shannon. I looked at the blonde, and saw that she was just wearily pushing herself to her feet, her face creased with worry. I looked where she was looking and saw Madysyn, her face sickly pale, her chest pumping up and down laboriously, and her breath ragged and shallow. At least, I thought it was Madysyn. It was dark out now, the middle of the night. Regan was holding the limp body, so it pretty mucj had to be his girlfriend. But Madysyn was always cheery and bright, energetic and optimistic. Not struggling to breath, ill and weak.

As Shannon strode by me, I started to wriggle out of Fang's arms. Shannon noticed me and shook her head, saying softly, "I'm the healer, remember? I'll fix her up just fine. Sleep, Max, you need it."

I stilled, and reluctantly fell back asleep. If I were properly awake, there was no way I would let Shannon and Regan tend to a sick Madysyn without me. I would be the leader and help them. But I was tired, and comfortable…..

Madysyn POV

Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out…

I could hear a raggedy grating sound. Irritated, I opened my eyes and tried to look around for the source of the annoying noise. Then I realized that it was in time with the rise and fall of my chest, and I figured out what it was.

My breathing.

I looked up, and saw Regan looking down at me in concern. He pressed a hand to my clammy forehead, and quickly withdrew it.

"Jesus…" he muttered.

He touched my hand, and I tried to curl my fingers around his, give a reassuring squeeze. Show him I was fine, he could go back to sleep…but my fingers only twitched, and it caused my breathing to hitch and pick up. I tried to move my hand again, determined. What was wrong with me?

My fingers spastically moved upwards and then fell limply. I gasped with exertion.

What the hell?

"Shannon." Regan called urgently. When hr body didn't move, he called her name louder. She moved. Her eyes opened.

Mine closed. I couldn't keep them open anymore. It was too much, they were like lead. And I needed energy to keep breathing, which was becoming more and more difficult. Soon the only thing my slow-as-molasses brain was registering was touch and taste, and the odd distorted sound. I couldn't see because my eyes were closed. I had no desire to smell anything, because that sounded like a lot of work, and all I'd smell would be garbage. I didn't really hear anything either, because there was nothing I _wanted _to hear, and everything was silent except my laboured breathing, and that wasn't interesting. I didn't care if I felt anything, because all I'd feel was my burning forehead and the freezing cement under my back. And, frankly, I had no desire to taste, because all I could taste was my own saliva, and that was gross.

Slowly, all my senses faded. I felt like I was floating in nothingness. Peaceful silence. I liked it here. I wanted to stay here. Forever. I never wanted to go back to that noisy, smelly, cold, gross world where I was always on the run. I wanted to stay here, in heaven…Die and stay here forever and ever and ever, never going ba-

Die.

With painful yank I wrenched myself out of that world of nothingness and back into reality.

Had I been dying?

Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with fear. I didn't want to die. I was only fourteen, for God's sake! And I had a boyfriend, Regan….

Regan. I loved him.

With that thought came a bombardment of…feeling. Once again I could feel the cold cement under my back. Hear Regan and Shannon talking urgently. See the blackness of my eyelids that wasn't nearly as black as that horrible pit of nothing I'd been falling into. Smell the pile of garbage across the alley from me. Taste the flavour of blood on my tongue. Blood? I'd bitten my cheek.

"Madysyn? If you can hear me, you're going to be all right. You'll be fine. I'm not going to let you be anything less than perfect." Shannon told me fiercely.

Forget fierce. If she was fierce, Regan was….adamant. Ferocious.

"Stay with me. Stay right here. You're not going _anywhere_." He whispered icily.

I felt a hand on my forehead. Not Regan, I knew his touch. Shannon. And I could feel a channel opening in my head, something flowing inside me…energy. Shannon was using her talent. Healing me.

Or trying to. If I tried, I could feel her emotions behind the flow of energy she was channelling into my mind. Frustration. Anger. Determination to make that which will not work _work_.

"Please, Shannon…" Regan pleaded.

His voice was broken up with pain and worry and fright. Over me. I could hear Shannon grit her teeth, and there was a tidal wave of energy crashing inside me, warring with whatever was making me sick. Compared to this, before had just been a trickle of energy.

"Come on, Madysyn." They said together.

Maybe if I just dove into the current of energy…instead of standing in its wake…what could it hurt? So I gathered my swirly mess of thoughts together and thrust my mind towards the energy.

It felt weird. I was embracing it instead of letting it wash over me.

And it helped. I felt better. It was easier to breathe, I felt like I could move if I tried.

But not enough. Yes, I felt better. But I could also feel the flow of what felt like tar swirling through my veins. The poison that was killing me. Or trying to kill me. It was painful. I'd been too focused on trying to breathe before, trying to stay _alive_, that I didn't notice the pain. Or maybe it was the fact that now there was something fighting the poison. Anyways, it _hurt _like _hell_. It was incredibly painful. Possibly more painful than anything I'd ever felt before. It wracked my body, toes to the roots of my hair. I felt like screaming.

But then, besides the pain, there was intense pleasure. The pleasure of energy being freely given (Actually, more like forced) into your body. Shannon's healing was a great thing to experience, and would be even better if it weren't for the small, inconvenient fact that if Shannon was healing you, it meant you were hurt and in pain. And she didn't bother healing tiny little scrapes. She healed knife stabs. She healed broken bones. She healed deathly illnesses.

It was another syzygy, I thought with an internal grimace. Revisiting that darker era, the one where Shannon was dead and everyone was hurting inside, wasn't something I loved to do. It meant thinking about the stupid prophecy that all but _condemned _us, and made us all so irritable and headachey. But I couldn't help thinking that pain and pleasure were another powerful syzygy. One that I was feeling right at that moment, and I wasn't sure if I loathed it or loved it with all my heart.

But the pain was beginning to slightly overshadow the pleasure. Shannon was tiring. Or weakening herself, taking too much energy and giving it to me. Anyway, it wasn't enough to stand up to the pain anymore.

I was on fire. Every limb, every artery, every vein, every capillary, every single cell in my body was on _fire_.

I heard a sharp breath, and then Shannon croaked urgently to Regan, "It's not enough. I'm running out of energy. Get Natalca. She knows…she can help."

I heard Regan get up, and I tried to focus on the sounds of his footsteps instead of the overpowering pain in my body.

"Natalca!" was accompanied by the sound of Regan shaking the sleeping girl.

"Regan? What the hell are you- Holy crap!" Natalca cried.

I'm pretty sure she saw me right then.

"You've gotta help Shannon…you have to…I don't know what." Regan said, frustrated.

"I know, I know!" Natalca knelt on the cement, and there was a silence while she…did something to help Shannon.

I was losing hope of anything changing, when suddenly the torrent of energy Shannon had been relentlessly pouring into me doubled. It was a hurricane, a typhoon, a waterfall, a tidal wave….there are no words for how powerful and strong it was. Shannon's energy alone was a torrent to be reckoned with. Shannon and Natalca _combined_ (for that must be what they were doing) was unimaginably stronger. It crashed into my mind, obscuring everything in its path, delving into every corner of my mind, and then, satisfied it was done with my mind, began to flood into the rest of my body. It poured through my arms, legs, chest, throat, everything. It washed away the pain of wherever it touched.

The poison inside me could never even be _compared _to the power of the sister/friends. As their energy continued to purge me of the poison, I realized I could hear their thoughts.

_How long were you doing this without me?! You're _wasted! _You _know _we're stronger together! Why didn't you wake me? _Natalca.

_I did! _Shannon.

_Yeah, after you exhausted yourself._

_Well, sorry. _

_You are _not _sorry._

_And? I almost had the…whatever was killing her…beat. Almost. Once I knew I couldn't do it alone, I got Regan to wake you. _

_You're barely conscious. As soon as I leave your mind, you're going to pass out._

_Will not!_

_Will too!_

_Oh, as if! I'm no cream puff. Expending a little energy-_

_A _little_?! LITTLE?! You almost _killed _yourself! AGAIN!! _Natalca went off again.

_Oh, shut up. _Shannon groaned.

Almost killed herself? Internally frowning, I moved on, diving deeper into their minds. I discovered that besides hearing their thoughts, I could see everything they'd ever thought. Their memories. Their secrets. _Everything_. Nothing was hidden from me, it was like we'd been joined. With a start, I realized that meant they could see _my _mind, too. It was on display for them, as theirs were for each other and me.

I would never look at the two of them the same again. I felt I had a new understanding for them, the way they operated, the way they saw the world. I allowed myself to look through Natalca's eyes for a moment, looking over her memories in comparison to how _I _had seen them. It gave me a very strange sense. Like I was looking in a funhouse mirror. Not that everything was exceptionally skinny or fat, or upside down. It was simply the same thing as I'd seen, but seen differently. It was something you could never understand unless you experienced it yourself. Eagerly, I tore myself away from Natalca and tackled Shannon's memories. I looked at the same memory, and saw that it was different from Natalca's and mine. It was…hard to explain how it was different, but trust me on that it was immensely contrasting to my perspective, and Natalca's. I continued looking at it, feeling kind of nosy, like I shouldn't be looking through her private things, but I was enjoying myself too much. The way she saw me, the dependable, bright, cheerful sister. The way she saw Natalca, the eternal friend/enemy/sister/rival. The way she saw Max, the reliable, strong, indomitable leader. And, best of all, the way she saw Iggy. The way she could hardly think about him without smiling. The way he always made her laugh and brought her so much happiness, and the strange way she was…attuned to him, to his presence.

_Enjoying yourself, are you? _A sharp voice asked me.

_Nosy little spy. We save her life_, _and she thanks us by snooping about in our heads. _Another voice said icily.

_Maybe we should stop giving her energy. Let her die. As revenge. _The first voice suggested angrily. Shannon.

_I think that's a good idea. On three. _Natalca.

And you know the scary part? They were completely and totally serious. They were going to let me die because I snooped in their minds. How was I supposed to know they'd be so mad? I was just curious!

I panicked.

_I'm sorry! I didn't know you'd be so mad! I won't tell anybody anything. _

_That's what they all say. And two days later, everybody's talking about you behind your back…. _Natalca rolled her eyes.

_It's so inconvenient. I have no urge to go through it again. _Shannon said.

I couldn't believe it.

_Shannon! Natalca! I didn't-_

There was a half-suppressed snicker, and I couldn't even tell who it was before they both burst into laughter. For a moment, neither could speak.

_Boy, you _are _gullible. _Natalca giggled.

Laughing, Shannon asked, _You didn't really think we would kill you, did you?_

When I didn't answer, she sobered a bit.

_Madysyn? We'd never let you die. Honestly, I really don't care that you looked in my mind. We were just joking around._

_Are you mad at us? _

Somehow, in some unfathomable way, they managed to give me the bambi eyes. I could almost see the hurt no their faces. I found that it was impossible to stay angry.

_No, I'm not mad. But how…you were serious! I looked at your mind, you were totally serious!_

_Poor, naïve, Madysyn. _Natalca smirked.

I gave her the equivalent of a raised eyebrow.

_We're shielding our minds. Not entirely, you can obviously see memories and thoughts and emotions. But the truth is that there's a lot more to the human/avian mind than that. If you could see our whole minds, we would be able to hide absolutely _NOTHING _from you. Like this._

And then I felt like a F200 tornado had touched down in my head. Whirlwinds of thoughts, emotions, subconscious, memories, and what felt like bits and pieces of Shannon's or Natalca's soul. If I reached out with my mind and touched one, I felt like I was touching a piece of Shannon or Natalca. It had their essence, their most powerful traits, their charisma. But I could hardly think above it all. Was this what Angel went through every day? But I was only connected with two minds. Angel had everybody around her…

_HOLY SHIT!! _I yelled.

The girls laughed. Then tornado receded, and they through their half-shields up again. I still felt like we were three exhibits on display.

_Nice comparison. _Natalca frowned.

_I have a few questions. _

_Shoot. _They said together.

_Well, Shannon told Regan that Natalca could help, that she knew something…why Natalca? Wouldn't Regan work just fine? _I wondered.

_It might have worked with Regan. Probably not, though. Whatever was killing you, and I still don't know what it was, was something in your mind, Madysyn. Not body. It's a very good thing I had shields up when I linked with you, when I gave you energy, because otherwise we'd both be dead right now. It would have flowed right from you into me. I know from experience…_Shannon shook herself. _If I had used Regan, it probably would have infected him because he probably doesn't know how to make the kind of shield Natalca and I have. So I got Natalca. _

_How'd you learn how to make these shields? You know it would flow into you from experience, what experience? _I asked her.

Silence. Feelings of sadness emanated from both minds. Then Natalca spoke.

_You remember… no, you won't, you weren't there. I guess this has never been explained to you, either. Shannon and I haven't been with the flock since birth._

_You haven't?_

_No. Definitely not. We were born in Canada, kidnapped and taken to a School at ten years old. _

_Oh, yeah, that's what Serena said! I never linked that together. _I interrupted.

Shannon tensed at Serena's name, but Natalca forged on.

_We had two friends there. One could read minds. The other didn't have a power. And he got a disease like this one. The mind-reader was forced to link with the sick one, but wasn't strong enough to save him. It started killing them both. So the whitecoats made the mind-reader make a link between all four of us, in the hopes of the two of us being able to save them both. We were ten years old, almost eleven. We were young. We didn't know what we were doing. So when we got linked, we had no shields up. Our minds, our whole minds, dove into both of them. We got confused. We were scared. Worried for our friends. Panicked. We understood that we had to channel energy into them, so we tried. But there were too many thoughts, to many memories, too much of _everything. _We got overwhelmed. Instead of aiming out energy at the invalids, we just let it out in bursts, letting it go wherever. We lost track of who was who. We didn't know what mind was whose. So when we actually tried directing the energy, it didn't go so well._

_Originally, we were right about who was who. We aimed at the two boys. But we didn't know that. So when our energy automatically tried to shy away from the poisoned minds, we, not knowing what was going on, let it do what it wanted. _

_In the end, we wound up sending energy to each other. By the time we figured that out, by the time we managed to sort through a tiny amount of the chaos that was the four of us and our minds, it was too late. We couldn't do anything. _

That was when she shuddered and went silent. Shannon swallowed and bitterly took up where she left off.

_Desperately, we threw ourselves at them. And guess what that did? It killed them. They were barely clinging to life before we attacked them, but we severed that tiny connection and killed them. _

She was quiet for a moment, lost in memory and letting me digest this. Of course, being linked to their minds, they weren't just telling me this. They were showing me. I saw and felt the panic they'd felt, and the horrible realization that they were dead. I saw the limp bodies as whitecoats pulled the girls away from them, and felt the grief and guilt.

_And then we got a new friend. Another mind-reader. She showed us how to make the shields, and she told us about the prophecy and the flock. She brought us out of our grief-induced depression. _

I shook my head. These two had been through a freaking _lot_. And I could identify with that. But I'd tell them about that some other time.

_Anymore questions? _Shannon asked.

I wanted to yell _Heck yes _but I was satisfied for now. I'd gotten one secret out of them. That was enough for now.

_Good, because Regan thinks we're all dead and is going to scream for the others to wake up in about 2.4 seconds. _Natalca announced.

_Crap! _Shannon and I cried.

I was going to ask how to get back to…reality, but they were gone. I had my head to myself again. I could feel the ground beneath me, and my eyes shot open just in time to see Shannon and Natalca shoot up and tackle Regan onto his back, covering his mouth. Slowly I sat up, then got to my feet and stood over them.

"Now I will kindly ask you both to get off from on top of my boyfriend, please." I told them.

They grinned up at me, not moving an inch. Regan made an annoyed _mmph_, and they got off. Regan sat up and then stood, promptly pulling me to his chest and holding me tight.

"Nice to see you, too. Now please don't break my ribs." I wheezed.

He loosened his hold, but didn't let me go anywhere.

"Are you okay? What happened? Do you feel all right?" he asked into my hair frantically.

"I'm fine, thanks to them." And then I went into the lengthy explanation of what happened. I skipped the part about Shannon and Natalca and the boys from the School. They mouthed thanks from behind Regan.

When I was finished, another voice asked, "Anybody care to explain what the _hell _is going on?"

I turned around. Max was walking over to us, Fang at her side.

I sighed and explained again, editing the same part out.

Just as I finished, there was rustling, and J.J. asked, "Uh…did I miss the wake up call?"

Seconds later, Iggy wondered, "What's going on? Why's everybody up?"

Seriously? I had to explain _again_? God damn it.

Lol. That was kinda fun. And confusing. Did I confuse anybody? If so, just tell me and I will explain again. Except if your name is NOtalka. You don't get an explanation, because you read every fifth sentence and would understand if you actually READ it.

Bye bye!


	3. Final Goodbye

Ughhh. Last chapter…enough said. I am not sure what fit of schizophrenia took control of my brain, but it was bad. Jeesh.

**Writing is cursed. You never know how a chapter is going to end until you're actually typing the final words. And you wonder how you're going to manage pulling it all together again. Sort of like jumping out of an airplane and hoping you can sew your parachute before you hit the ground. **

**Like now, for instance. Right as I'm typing this, I have no clue what my opening words will be, or what's going to happen, or where they're going to be when this chapter ends. **

**That was random. But anyway…**

**Max POV**

I'd woken up about five minutes ago, and already the Troublesome Trio had given me a headache. Yes, the Trio. It used to be the Twins, but I have expanded it to include Panther Girl and the two DNA-lacking girls.

I rubbed my forehead. I wasn't entirely sure, but from what I understood, _something _had given Madysyn a deadly disease, one that Shannon and Natalca had seen before, with a friend back in Jasper. Shannon almost killed herself trying to safe Madysyn herself, and then woke Natalca. Shannon used her healing power, stretching the boundaries to _take _energy from Natalca instead of giving it like her gift was obviously intended to do. Then she channelled her and Natalca's combined energy into Madysyn and flushed out whatever was killing her. In the process, their minds got linked temporarily, and now Madysyn is more in tune with them than ever before.

Now, isn't that wonderful? I have the Twin balls of energy, and now a third. Fantastic. That makes everything easy for Max.

And it also explains a bit of how and why Shannon and Natalca know each other so well. I mean, of course being together since kindergarten was most of it, being mind-linked twice was part of it, too.

For the first five minutes since I'd woken up, I'd felt good. Refreshed. Rested. Not bordering-on-snapping-stressed-out-extremely-tired. But the headache was taking that feeling away entirely.

My super-hearing picked up a footstep coming in my direction, and my body reacted without thinking. I spun, fists clenched, foot ready to snap into a kick.

But there was no need, because once again I'd freaked for no reason. It was Madysyn, and her head was cocked in confusion.

"Is there a reason you want to kill me? More than usual, I mean?"

"Yes. You've given me a headache. But I don't know why I reacted like that. Sorry." I sighed.

"Take a chill-pill, Max. You can relax a bit. No one's trying to kill us quite as much anymore." She gave a rueful grin. "Serena's gone. Taren's gone. And it's not just you looking out for five younger kids. Well, Fang and Iggy aren't much younger, but you know what I mean. You have Shannon, Iggy, Natalca, J.J., Fang, Regan, and I all on high alert just as much as you, ready to fight and defend. You're not on your own."

"Have you been reading Hallmark cards or something?" I asked.

"Oh, yes, they're very interesting. Would you like to hear some more?" she said sarcastically.

"Not really, no."

Fang came to my side, and glanced at Madysyn. She got the hint and left, shifting and bounding to Natalca, who was throwing cans at the wall using levitation.

I looked at Fang.

"Everyone's up. We can go." He said.

"Okay." I spread my wings, and Fang's mouth twisted into a frown.

"Max, are you okay?" he asked.

"Honestly, not really. I'm super stressed. But that's nothing new. Let's go." I said flatly. "Up and away, guys."

Everyone stopped and shot into the air after me, Wolf-Boy (yes, that's my nickname for him) and Panther Girl (haha. I bet she'd hate that) taking their customary places on the ground and running beneath us.

For a while, the tension in my muscles relaxed, as I let myself slide into blissful calm that always came with flying. Well, when we weren't running from crazed villains trying to kill us.

"Where to start, where to start…" I muttered.

We had to look for the School, but Dacca was very close packed, very squishy. It could very easily be hidden anywhere.

Madysyn POV

Regan was going insane, I could tell. He'd almost completely gone over the edge when I'd bee dying, but this was almost worse. He was so scared that it would happen again, with the same lack of warning. And this time maybe Natalca and Shannon couldn't save me, or they couldn't get to me fast enough, or the whitecoats would catch us first, and I'd die in a cell, or….it could go on and on.

Unfortunately, we were in animal form, so I couldn't talk to him. No, I couldn't _command _him.

But I wasn't sure how convincing I'd be, anyway. I was scared, too. Call me a wuss, and I'll hunt you down and rip to very small shreds very torturously. You don't know what's it like to almost die, and not even know why. And then to know perfectly well that it could very much happen again. Soon. Worse than last time. I could drop dead any second now, for all we knew. Or maybe it wouldn't even be me. Maybe it would be Nudge. Or Fang. Or Iggy. Or J.J. Or Shannon.

Or Regan.

I shuddered. It could be anyone.

Jesus, I was scaring myself. And I was worrying about Max, as well. Something was wrong with her, something bad. She almost attacked both Regan and I when we approached her, and she seemed to be on a constant adrenaline rush.

Speaking of that, Regan wasn't himself either. Besides the obsessive worrying about me, I mean. He tensed up whenever anybody talked to him, walked by him, brushed against him, made a sound…he was on hyper alert gone to the next level. Except me, of course. I never made him jump.

I never made him jump…so what was different about me? It's not like I don't scare him because I'm his girlfriend. No, we're not some lovey-dovey romance story here. So why was I not scary and the others were?

Don't even _think _the fact that I'm female. So are Max, Natalca, Shannon, Angel, and Nudge.

I'm a panther. They're birds. But since when are panthers and wolves best friends? Except that we're both predators, hunters, stalkers, _carnivores_…and birds are often our prey.

They are birds.

My heart skipped a beat, and I messed up my stride, tumbling headlong into Regan's side. He gave a short bark and looked at me in alarm, wondering what was wrong. I shook my head at him, telling him I was fine. He looked away, not convinced.

But at the moment, I didn't care. I swear, it was all I could do to keep my paws streaking over the ground and not take a nose-dive. My brain was swirling around in a leap of intuition.

We're natural predators, and they're our natural prey.

The very first day I met the flock, along with Beth, the tiger. We had barely controlled our desire to rip their throats out. Especially Beth. Me, not as much. I hadn't travelled with them because of it. But then it had gotten better, and we'd become friends. Their desire to fight me faded, as my instinct to eat them faded, too.

Maybe our instincts were coming back. Regan didn't tense and jump when I joined him because I was a fellow hunter. He jumped when they were around him, because they were not fellow hunters. They were enemies, prey.

When Max had turned on Regan, snarling and hissing. She'd thought he was an Eraser, because they both gave off the same aura. Predator. Same reason when she almost attacked me earlier.

Oh, man.

Max POV

We'd been flying for hours, combing the city over and over, circling and spiralling. Madysyn and Regan were on the ground, trying to pick up trails of whitecoats, antibacterial, all that School kind of stuff. It was harder for them, though, because they had to avoid busy streets, and be sure to stay in abandoned alleys and the dark corners where no one would see them. Regan's frustration was almost tangible.

Angrily I glanced at my flock. I sighed, admitting to myself that they were dead tired.

"Stop, guys. Land in that alley, there. Maybe we'll find a hotel, stay the night, rest up. I'll get some info from the Voice." I said flatly.

"Are you sure, Max? We can keep looking, if you want. I'm not too tired." Nudge ventured.

I opened my mouth to say something, but Fang quickly interrupted, banking sharply and looking at Nudge before saying firmly, "Do what she says."

Nudge clamped her mouth shut and descended with the rest of us, Angel calling the other two mentally. They showed up, tails drooping and paws dragging.

"Sorry, guys. I should have stopped sooner. I shouldn't have let you get this tired. We shouldn't ever not be able to fight. I'm-" I began, berating myself.

"Max!" A chorus of voices stopped me.

"We're fine. You didn't do anything wrong. Stop beating on yourself. You do a great job of looking after us. I don't want to think what would happen if _I _tried to lead." Natalca argued.

"All right, all right. But we still need rest." I sighed, not up for arguing.

Shannon POV

For the very first time since Natalca and I had arrived, I was using my dreamwalking gift. Nope, wait, second time. I used it to show Iggy what happened with Serena. But that was an emergency, sort of. This was just for fun, and pleasure. When I peeked at other people's dreams, I felt like I was floating, or flying. When I put myself _inside _the dream, doing the whole dreamwalker thing, it was even better. When I _influenced _a dream, the feeling got even more intense, and I got a feeling of power.

When you tell people you can control dreams, they tend to scoff. Well, at least the few people I _have _told. What can controlling dreams possibly do? More than you'd think. You know when you were little, and you watched a scary movie and had nightmares for weeks? Or had one nightmare and were scared of the dark for a while? Or when you kept having the same nightmare over Andover and you were really freaked? Well, that could have been me, if I felt like it. Or it could have been a totally normal subconscious thing. Most likely the latter.

But I could also do a hell of a lot more than scare four year-olds. I could give such a terrifying nightmare that you would lock your doors and sleep with the lights on and one eye open for the rest of your life. That's about a five on a scale of one to ten. Ten was committing suicide the next day.

The problem was that there was some dreams I could not influence. Some minds just had built in walls against me, but that was rare. Sometimes whatever was making the person dream was just too strong in the subconscious for me to do anything about. That, too, was rare. The worst problem was what I called 'recoil'. That was when I was either careless, weak, too strong, too closely mind-linked, or a plain fluke. It was when whatever dream I influenced or completely made disappear popped up in my mind next time I fell asleep. And let me tell you, that can scare the crap out of you when a dream you _know _you've never had before seems _so _familiar. The first time, it took me a while to figure it out.

But obviously, my gift was not just a weapon. I could use it to be nice, as well, but that was less likely. When we were in the School, and Natalca had a nightmare of something, I'd make it go away. And if I couldn't, I'd at least put myself in it to talk to her and make it less scary. I remember a few nights after we'd run away when I'd sensed a small child nearby having a bad dream, and fixing it.

See? I'm not completely heartless.

And right now, I was having fun looking at the flock's dreams. Iggy was dreaming about me, and bombs. Jeez, that sounds bad. Let me clarify. He was not dreaming about using the bombs _on _me, but _for _me, against whatever enemies were trying to kill me. It was quite cute, actually. His mind was quite creative when it came to enemies. First it was Erasers, then Flyboys, then a bunch of creepy things that kept coming. I thought about changing it, in case he was scared I was going to die or something, but he seemed content in his abilities to kill everything but me.

Natalca was having a very weird dream that jumped all over the place. It was hard for me to follow, so I couldn't imagine how confused she was in her sleep state. And it was in black and white. For a while, I watched it like it was a movie. Then things started to get clearer. Still in black and white, the 'plot line' changed completely. She was standing in a clearing, and she was alone, staring up at a full moon. She was scared. She knew something bad was going to happen, but I couldn't find out what it was before it happened. There was a long, drawn out, blood-curdling howl, and something huge came out of the bush at full-tilt, coming to a stop across the meadow from her. It stared at her, and there was familiarity between them, as if they knew each other. And it was a wolf. Huge, strong, and magnificent.

My first thought was Regan. But it was pitch black, no question. And besides that, it radiated viciousness. Natalca was no friend of his. The wolf pulled his lips back and snarled, terrifying canine teeth long and sharp. Threatening.

Natalca went still and stared at it, not moving at all. She seemed scared. And that's when I realized the difference between this Natalca and the real-world Natalca. This one didn't have wings. This one was completely human. Which meant she was weak like a human.

She knew she was in horrible danger. But she wasn't terrified. With a start, I realized she had come here on purpose, coming to meet the wolf. Why, I had no clue. The wolf snarled again and started moving forward. _Stalking_. Natalca still did not move. And then it lunged. Of course, I could have been nice and changed her dream so she didn't die (the ending of this dream was clear) but I didn't. I was entranced. And then I was shocked, because she didn't suddenly wake up because the wolf had killed her.

No, there was another shape in front of her, diving at the black wolf's throat. I saw a flash of chocolate brown fur and black legs. It was Regan.

_Tsk tsk. Dreaming about Regan. _I thought. _Madysyn will not be pleased. _

But then there was a long, lithe, blur of more black fur, and the slash of silver claws. Madysyn was here, too. I watched curiously, wondering why her subconscious was giving her this dream.

The black wolf howled, and it sounded frustrated. And then Natalca was on her feet, her face angry. But she wasn't glaring at the black wolf, she seemed to be seething at Madysyn and Regan.

Then she woke up. Of course.

I woke up as well, as I always did when the dream I was looking at ended. I would talk to her, but she was in her room with J.J., and I was with Iggy. I rolled over and quickly fell asleep again.

This time I moved on to Fang, very curious as to what he dreamed about. Guess what I found? Everything was dark. In shades of black and grey. Typical. I grinned internally when I deciphered what was happening. He was on a cliff with Max. they were holding hands and talking. Then they were silent, and he started leaning down towards her, and she started leaning up towards him. I waited until their lips were almost touching, and then I yelled as loud as I could in his head.

_HI FANG!!!!!!! SWEET DREAMS!!!!!! _

Then I left before he could figure out what happened and yell at me. I thought about who next to go to, and picked Madysyn.

Her dream was even more vivid and frightening than Natalca's. Something horribkle was happening. She was in panther form, and sprinting. From something? Nope, _after _something. But she wasn't feeling the bliss of a hunter's chase. Her head was an open chasm of negative emotions. Fright. Betrayal. Desperation. Grief. Shame. And burning, raging self-hatred.

Uhhh….I didn't know what to make of it. But I didn't have much time to think, because stuff was happening, and I didn't want to miss anything.

Madysyn was trying to slow her paws, to sheath her claws, to _stop chasing_. But when she was in panther form, some of her humanity disappeared. Actually, quite a bit. She became more animalistic, more ruled by instincts. And her instincts were screaming at her to give chase, to hunt, to corner, to frighten, to stalk, to _kill_.

Ahead of her, I could hear pounding footsteps, and then silence, except for the occasional leaf rustling. And of course, Madysyn's pounding heart and thudding footsteps. And her chaotic thoughts. But she kept running, like she was certain her prey was still there. Suddenly the scenery changed. The forest disappeared, replaced by a canyon. I changed my view, trying to see what she was chasing. Instead, I found Regan, running almost parallel to her. That's when I figured out a bit more. Or at least the shape of the canyon. The grand plan of the master hunters.

The canyon was deep, with huge walls on either side, and getting deeper the farther they went in. It was like a huge bowl, but with two exits parallel to each other, with a slab of rock about a half mile wide separating the two roof-less tunnels. They were running towards the bowl part, and chasing something else into it. Cornering it. The paths were not straight, of course. Madysyn turned a corner onto a straight away, and I didn't immediately register what I was seeing. Probably because I refused to believe it. There were three shapes ahead, fleeing quickly. Three shapes that could fly and had roughly thirteen foot wingspans. And wore clothes and sneakers.

One turned around, the biggest one. Her face was contorted with anger, fear, betrayal, and sadness. And a whole lot of hurt.

Even with all that, I recognized Max's face. The second one glanced back, and I gasped internally. It was the unmistakable mocha-coloured face of Nudge. And the tiny blonde girl could only be Angel.

Not believing it, I shifted to look into Regan's tunnel and choked. Ahead of the wolf, Fang was beating his wings furiously and hustling one other along. Gazzy, with tears going down his face.

What was going on? Why were Madysyn and Regan chasing us? In Regan I found the same emotions as Madysyn. And where was I? Natalca? Iggy? J.J? Abandoning the horrible, sickening hunt, I went back along the route, looking for any clues as to what was happening. Unfortunately, I could only see what Madysyn had. But with panther eyes that was bound to be enough.

But when I turned a corner, I wished it wasn't. I didn't want to see what I knew was on the ground up there. It was the shape of a human, with wings. Limp, motionless. Bloody.

The wings were stone grey. Cautiously, swallowing my fear, I went farther. And wanted to scream and run away. It was a body. Stone dead. And it was covered in claw marks, ripped to shreds. That wasn't the worst part. The worst part is that I recognized the mangled body.

J.J.

_It's just a dream it's just a dream it's just a dream! _I thought to myself.

But it was horrifying. Farther up the path, I found another form on the ground, in a very painful looking and awkward position. The neck was bent at a very, very, wrong angle. Definitely snapped. The fingers were bent into claws, and there was blood under the nails. The clothes were ripped apart, and so was the flesh underneath. Blood was still seeping out. The face was cut and gashed with teeth and claws, but I would never mistake this face. My eyes scanned the ground around, anything to get away from the gruesome image in front of me. In the dirt, there was tufts of black fur caked with blood.

Well, at least I knew Natalca had fought.

Next time, I was sort of prepared, knowing who else was missing. But nothing could have prepared me for it. It wasn't this that got me, but it was what I saw first.

My legs, twisted in ways impossible for intact bones. Broken, both of them. My chest, with a rib poking out of the flesh. My stomach was completely slashed open, many different organs I never, ever needed to see on display. My gaze travelled up to my neck, and I flinched. I only knew it was neck because I knew that's where it should be. But what I saw was a total mess of shredded flesh, blood and gore. I think I even saw a few vertebrae mixed in there. And that was not just the work of claws, although claws had definitely gone crazy there. Only teeth could rip chunks of flesh off like that. Around my dead-for-the-second-time body was a pool of blood that looked quite deep. If I hadn't died from having my throat slashed out, or the rib through the chest, or the broken bones, I would have bled to death in no time.

Jesus Christ.

That was all I thought before I subjected myself to possibly the worst thing ever.

Iggy. In pieces. Just as bad if not worse than me. There were a lot of holes and missing bits of flesh for the amount strewn on the ground. Someone had had a snack. His chest, his perfect, blemish-free, scar less chest that I had traced, and slept on so many times was laid open all the way through. I could see what I guessed was a lung, and what must have been a heart.

I stopped moving forward. I stopped breathing. I stopped thinking. I stopped registering anything at all. This was too much, too much…

Far away in the distance, from the bowl shaped canyon, I heard a high-pitched, agonized scream, and a roar of triumph. Someone else had just joined Natalca, J.J., Iggy and I.

Four more screams. Four more heart-ripping, ear-shattering, agonized, horrifying sounds that would forever be ingrained in my memory, even though they weren't real.

I glanced back down at 'Iggy'. Or the empty, shredded shell that used to be Iggy. Then I looked back at my own bloody body. A little ways off, Natalca and J.J. Far away in the canyon, Max, Angel, Nudge, Fang, and Gazzy were all just as destroyed.

I wrenched myself awake, and sprinted for the bathroom. I couldn't help it. I threw up. Then Iggy was there, and I comforted myself with the thought that Iggy was alive and well, and that horrible hunt had just been Madysyn's…nightmare.

It _had _been a nightmare, right?

She didn't dream about killing us, did she?

"Shannon? Are you okay? Do you feel all right? Are you sick?" Iggy asked frantically.

Sickened. That was me.

But I shook my head and said, "Food poisoning. Ate too much. I'm fine, Ig. Let's go back to bed."

Once Iggy was in bed and falling asleep, I let down my guard and let myself think. I had seen into Madysyn's mind early this morning. She hadn't given off any thoughts off killing anybody then. She couldn't be a traitor. I knew that. I was angry I'd even had the thought.

But then why had she and Regan killed us?

When I'd first come into the dream, I'd focused on her emotions for a moment. All I had felt was remorse, guilt, self-hatred, shame and desperation. She hadn't wanted to kill us. At least on the surface. But underneath, I'd picked up the panther half. Hunger. Predatory determination. And the age-old categories that any carnivore classified everything by.

Predator or prey. She had classified herself as predator, obviously.

Guess who was the prey? Us. The flock. The _birds_.

Now where's a brick wall when you need one? I slapped my forehead, and then went still, wondering if Iggy was even asleep yet. Thankfully, he was. I let out my breath, and then got angry all over again. How come no one had seen it? How come I hadn't seen it? How come Natalca hadn't seen it? We'd both seen into her mind, with absolutely no barriers. _How come Madysyn hadn't seen it?_

I threw the covers off and leapt out of the bed, making my footsteps silent but as fast as possible. I threw open the door violently and then caught it before it could hit the wall.

Madysyn and Regan were hunters. We were prey. We didn't belong together. We couldn't _stay _together, not if Madysyn's subconscious was that…_sure _of what it wanted. And Max…the way Max had flipped on them when they approached her…she was feeling it, too.

Someone was going to get hurt. Bad. And it could be anybody. I reached Madysyn and Regan's door, and viciously threw it open. I wasn't sure exactly what I was doing, or what I was going to say. But I couldn't let this go on.

"Madysyn. I know you're awake. Get the hell out here." I hissed into the room.

My mind was stuck in battle mode. But don't judge me on it, because you would be, too, if you'd looked at the very detailed dead bodies of your best friend and her boyfriend, and then yourself and your own boyfriend. I hoped to God that Regan was not awake. Not because I didn't want to talk to both of them. Because I wasn't sure I could take both of them if they attacked me.

"Shannon?" Madysyn's voice wavered slightly.

"Get over here."

I heard her get up, and then her silhouette was at the door, her eyes cautious.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Don't act innocent. I'm a _dreamwalker, _remember?" I growled.

She flinched.

"Oh…" she whispered, catching on.

"Yes, oh."

"Shannon, I didn't-"

"Don't talk here. Come out here, we'll go on the roof." I ordered.

Madysyn followed, knowing quite well that she had to do what I told her, or I would get the others and tell them about her dream. And she didn't want that.

On the roof, in the fresh, cool night air, some of my sense came back to me, and my anger faded a bit.

"I'm sorry, that was harsh." I said abruptly.

She looked at me, saying nothing.

"You can't control your dreams, I know that. And you're no traitor, either, I _know _that." I swallowed. "It just shook me, and scared me, seeing that."

She was silent for a moment, and then spoke, her voice quiet and gentle.

"I know it must have. It scared me, too. How much did you see?" she wondered.

"Enough." I said shortly. Then I elaborated. "You were running through a forest, and then it changed to the canyon. You went around a corner, and I saw Max, Nudge, and Angel. Then I looked at Regan, and saw Fang and Gaz. I couldn't stand watching, so I went back along the trail and found…" I swallowed.

"Oh. I'm sorry, Shannon, I am. It's so…" She stopped, and swallowed again. When she spoke, her voice was strong, angry, and full of emotion. Not looking at me, she stared up at the moon and said, "Sometimes I wish so much that I could be normal. Of course, we all do. And other times, I'm happy. I love Regan so much, and I love being able to turn into a panther, and I love all you guys. But other times, it's all too much. When you were killed, that was one of those times. I couldn't take it. We've all been through way too much for our ages, and I wish so much things could be easier. But it's not, and we have to deal with it. Move on. Get over it.

_This _is one of those times. Regan and I…we fit in here, and we love you and all the others. You and Natalca are such good friends to me, which is something I haven't experienced since….ever. I never had friends, and I want so badly to stay here with you. Like I said, we fit in. But we don't _belong_. We might hurt somebody. Someone might hurt _us_."

She stopped, and I could see how much her next words hurt her. So I forced them out for her, wanting to make everything easier.

"You have to leave." I said it softly, a statement, not an order, not a demand.

She nodded slowly. "Regan and I…we'll be okay on our own. And we won't hurt anybody."

"You'll still….you'll still bring down the rest of Itex with us, right?" I asked.

I didn't think I could bear it if I had to say goodbye to her forever.

"Yes. We're involved now. Regan's father killed you, you killed Regan's father. We watched you die. You came back to life, and died with us, again. No way will I ever forget anything that happened with the flock, and never could I leave it behind completely. We'll see you again."

I swallowed and blinked. Just as I was about to talk, another voice broke the silence before I could.

"What are you doing out here?" Regan asked sharply.

Madysyn glanced at him and sighed. She explained the conclusion that we had come to, and he blinked, though he didn't seem that surprised.

"I was…yeah, I figured. I thought Max might figure it out first, but I guess it makes sense that it was Shannon, since she can see our dreams."

"Why would you say that? Have you been having dreams about killing us?" I asked none-too-gently.

His silence was answer enough.

"Jesus." I muttered.

Regan's bright electric blue eyes bored into mine and he said firmly, "You've got to understand, Shannon. Madysyn and I _don't want to hurt anybody_. It's our damn instincts, our animal sides, that are chomping at the bit to attack. I'm as horrified and sickened by it as you are, trust me. It disgusts me that I can't control myself. That I could possibly hurt my best friends. That I could lose control and _kill _my best friends. I can't live with that possibility. We'll leave."

Madysyn was about to say something, but she was interrupted by another familiar voice.

"We should have figured it out sooner, I suppose. But you didn't think you were having this discussion without me, did you?" Natalca asked, her eyes grim despite her tone as she stepped out of the shadows.

I sighed. "Is anyone else hiding that would like to come out?"

I didn't expect an answer, and I didn't get one. Natalca had probably only found us because of her radar gift.

"How much did you hear?" Madysyn asked Natalca.

"Just what Regan said. But that's enough for me to put it together."

"Then you understand that we have to leave. Right now." Regan said.

"Why right now? Can't you wait until morning?" I asked.

"I had a dream very similar to Madysyn's. Now that the animal in us has…had a taste of what it wants…only to have it ripped away again…" Regan worded it delicately. "It's much worse than it was before. It's hard enough to keep from charging you two."

"You could try." Natalca and I retorted, not appreciating being pinned as the prey.

He gave us a look. "Don't start. That doesn't make it any easier."

"All right." I agreed softly.

I stepped over to Madysyn and wrapped my arms around her, hugging her tightly. She returned my hug, and I had a horrible mental flash of the rib poking out of my chest. Yeah, that's how tightly she hugs.

"Don't get killed, okay?" I whispered.

"Like you can talk." She scoffed.

I grinned. "Okay, so I'm no expert on staying alive. But do it anyway, got it?"

"Got it."

The light banter seemed to erase some of the tension, and I released Madysyn and attacked Regan instead. No pun intended. I enveloped him in a hug, and remembered suddenly that he was my nephew.

"Promise me you'll stay alive." I ordered.

"Yes, Aunt Shannon." Regan retorted.

"Oh, don't start." I moaned, banging my head against his chest. He winced, and I hugged him hard before letting go.

I was irritated to find tears in my eyes. This whole damn thing since I joined the flock has elicited a lot of tears. Argh. Natalca reluctantly let Madysyn go, and they each gave a wave and a sad smile.

"Bye, Madysyn. Bye, Regan." I whispered.

"Bye." Then they both shifted, and leaped from the roof of the hotel to the next one, and the next, and so on.

Natalca and I stood there, watching the figures of the black panther and the chocolate brown wolf slowly get smaller and smaller and then disappear altogether. I smiled at Natalca, and said, "And so Panther Girl and Wolf Boy run off into the night."

She smiled, and then we both looked up at the moon. It was full.

Far off in the distance, a wolf howled. The final goodbye.

Well, did that ever make tears flow.

Aww. Lol. See what I mean? I had absolutely no inkling that Madysyn and Regan were going to leave. My characters literally have minds of their own. It's like they actually exist…. I wish.

Lol.

*SanraitaFang*


	4. East Meets West

Wow, I must say that a few of you are pretty soft-hearted. Lol. That's good, because it means I can make my readers feel whatever emotion I want them to feel. Muahaha, I feel like a complete puppetmaster. Dictator. Boss.

**Ah, the sweet bliss of power.**

**CHECK OUT MY NEW POLL! It's just for fun, but it's really interesting to see how my readers feel. The poll is 'Who's your favourite Syzygy/Ebony Moon character, of the ones I created?' YOUR FAVOURITE NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT!**

**Lol.**

**Ebony Moon Chapter Four**

Shannon POV

I glanced at Natalca. We both had tears falling silently down our faces. I hate crying. And if any of you _dare _call me soft-hearted, wimpy, or weak, say your prayers, because I will _destroy _you.

"I miss them." Natalca said quietly.

"So do I. So do I." I whispered.

It was amazing how attached you could get to someone, and not realize it until they were gone. I'm sure its different in your life, where you have countless friends, family members, teachers, team mates, blah blah blah. I had exactly ten people I could trust. Ten people I _knew_. I didn't know _anybody _outside the flock. And when you lose someone out of your already teeny group of acquaintances, it hurts.

A lot.

Imagine that you have ten arms. Ignore the hilarious mental image that looks like an octopus. Imagine you were born with ten arms. Grew up with all of them, got used to them, used all of them all the time. Ten arms were totally normal to you, like two are to the rest of us.

Now imagine that two get cut off. You feel weird, off-balance, messed up. Yeah. Welcome to my life.

"What do we say?" I wondered.

She knew what I meant. What the _hell _were we going to tell everyone else? Especially the younger kids? Oh, Madysyn and Regan were dreaming about bloodily and gruesomely murdering us and having us for lunch. But don't worry, they left.

Yeah. That's great.

"We'll tell them the truth. All of them. We can't keep it from Angel, she's a mind-reader. And it's not fair to Gazzy and Nudge to keep it from them. Especially when they've been through enough to take this on, as well. They'll be okay. We'll all be okay. And we'll see them again."

She didn't add the two other words we were both thinking. _I hope_.

"Okay." I agreed in a whisper.

Max POV

Crap. Double, triple, quadruple, quintuple, sextuple, septuple, octuple, nonuple, decuple CRAP.

Madysyn and Regan left. Shannon and Natalca had just told me. And Fang, Iggy, and J.J. They were leaving it to me to tell the other three. Lovely.

"Angel, Gazzy, Nudge, come in here, please." I called.

Here goes.

J.J. POV

Max had just called the younger kids in to tell them what had happened. I could tell that Natalca was itching to get out of there before Max broke the news.

I gave Fang a significant look, making sure he knew what I was doing, and took her hand, leading her out of the room. I pulled her across the hall and into our room, not pausing before going to the bed. I sat down, leaning against the headboard, and she sat beside me. I pulled her into my side, her head on my chest.

"Oh, Natalca." I murmured.

She sniffled. "I hate crying."

"I know. But I'm not judging you. You were close to Madysyn. I was close to Regan. I know how it is." I rested my cheek on her hair.

"It's so…so _wrong_. The universe hates us. We make some friends, but no, they have to leave because we're going to kill each other."

The brazen way she put it was so typically Natalca. I didn't know what to say, so I just held her while her body quivered in my arms. About half an hour later, there was a knock at the door. I glanced down at Natalca. She had stopped shaking a while ago, but hadn't moved or said a word. I figured she had fallen asleep. It was the middle of the night, after all.

But her eyes opened, and she didn't look sleepy. So she had just been thinking to herself the past while.

"Come in." I called softly.

The door opened, and Iggy poked his head in, the rest of his body and a spent-looking Shannon following.

"Mind if we join you?" Shannon asked, her voice slightly hoarse.

"Not at all."

We talked for a bit, first about what happened, and then about anything but. Then we all ran out of things to say, and fell into comfortable silence.

"Regan was wanting to watch the news. Find out more about the CN Tower. I wonder if he can where he is." I said suddenly, retrieving the remote and turning the TV on.

"What channel is the news?" I asked after a moment.

It seemed like a rather easy question, but no one answered. Sighing at our ignorance, I flipped channels until I found it.

And my jaw dropped. Again. For the second time tonight, third time in, like, two days.

"-terrible loss of one of the wonders of the world, the Taj Mahal. Investigations have yielded very little information, but police have come to the conclusion that the startling attack must be the same group that same one that destroyed the CN Tower a week ago. But this time, more lives were taken. If these terrorists are trying to make a statement, they are succeeding. 1569 people were inside the building at the time of the implosion. Authorities and explosives experts have determined that small not _too _lethal bombs were strategically placed inside the building so that when set off, key structural points would rupture, causing the entire building to collapse. There were no survivors. Again, 1569 people were killed in the implosion.

Then, not five minutes later, security cameras on nearby buildings caught some more adventure movie action. Fifteen evenly placed explosives had been planted around the marble building, and were detonated all at once, ensuring the deaths of everyone remotely near the building, taking out a few small buildings, as well. I am very, very, grieved to report that the heart-stopping fatality toll is 5019, and counting.

And now over to Rob, who has a very lucky witness with him."

Slowly, I looked at the other three. Natalca was outright dumbfounded, her eyes wide and her jaw slack. Iggy was motionless, his eyes swimming with surprise. Shannon's eyes were as wide as ostrich eggs, and her hand was over her mouth in the classic _oh my god I don't believe it _pose.

Then 'Rob' began talking.

"This is Calisa, an incredibly lucky witness to the destruction of the Taj Mahal and the surrounding buildings. What did you see, Calisa?" Rob asked grimly.

'Calisa' didn't look too coherent at the moment. Her eyes were wide and uncomprehending, and she was staring unblinking at something behind the camera.

"Blood…" she said shakily. "Blood everywhere. Screaming…more blood. I was scared, I tried, I ran, but there was so much blood!"

"It's okay, Calisa. You're safe. But tell the camera exactly what you saw. Did you see anybody suspicious?"

It was a stupid question. Obviously the terrorist or terrorist_s _wouldn't be walking around in plain daylight with a bomb detonator in their hand. But he needed her to talk, and he needed it to make sense, not random babbling.

"There was pretty white marble…and then there was blood everywhere, red and white, red and white…blood on marble…"

We all dived for the remote at the same time, so I wasn't sure who actually pressed the 'off' button, I just knew I was just grateful.

"Blood runs down a marble staircase." We all said it together.

We didn't need any more words.

Except an expletive or two.

"Shit." Natalca said at the same time Shannon said, "Hell."

"It's already starting. We're through with one prophecy, on to the next." I sighed.

"Haven't you learned yet, J.J.? Nothing ever goes well for us." Max said from the doorway.

"No, I figured that out pretty soon after I joined the flock, Max. I just felt it needed to be expressed."

"_Blood runs down a marble staircase._ That's the first line. What's next?" Fang asked.

"_Blood spills in a deadly race._" Natalca answered.

"Each one must be a world disaster. Six more 9/11's, and then the apocalypse." Iggy said grimly.

"'Cause the world really needs more blood and gore." Shannon commented.

"Well, we'll just have to be Fate's fly in the ointment and stop them." She paused.

"By destroying the world early!" I suggested sarcastically.

"Yeah, with our bad sense of humour." Shannon rolled her eyes.

"Uh-huh, because you're so much funnier than him." Natalca gave Shannon a light smack on the arm.

Slapping her back, Shannon said, "Nope. He's funnier in the head than me."

Everybody groaned at her lame joke, including her.

"Sorry. I just couldn't resist."

"Could we be serious again? Please?" Max demanded. "If we're going to stop this _deadly race_, we're going to have to figure out what it means. Any ideas?"

Everyone looked at each other, saying nothing.

"I think I speak for everybody when I say we're drawing a blank." Iggy told Max.

"What if…there's, like, a big stadium somewhere? Horse-racing? And the stadium is going to collapse or something?" Natalca suggested.

"Not a bad idea. But there's thousands of races everyday. Millions, probably. How the heck could we figure out exactly which race, where, and when, out of all the freaking _lots _of stadiums there are? Especially when that may not even be what the prophecy is?" Shannon bit her lip.

"If we see on the news tomorrow that a stadium collapsed somewhere, and lots of people were killed, I blame it entirely on you." Natalca told Shannon.

"Well, _sorry_! _Someone _had to be logical!" Shannon snapped.

Yup, nerves were frayed, all right. I glanced at Max, and her brown eyes seemed weary and grim as she said, "All right, enough for one night. Everybody in bed, now."

Natalca glanced at Shannon. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"When am I not?" she rolled her eyes and nodded. "Yeah, I got it, too."

Natalca giggled, and Shannon smiled and laughed at the expression on the rest of our faces.

"Inside joke. It's nothing." She assured us.

Everyone left mine and Natalca's room, and she immediately flung herself under the blankets and curled up in a catlike ball.

"'Night." I murmured.

"G'night." She responded sleepily.

Shannon POV

Well. First the CN Tower, one of my favourite things in my home country. And now the Taj Mahal. I'd dreamed about visiting that place…

So many dead. So many innocent, unlucky people that were in the wrong place at the wrong time. So many people that had been snuffed out just because some terrorists decided to blow them up? There were probably many children in there…

Oh, boy, it made me mad. And what really got me? For all I freaking knew, my whole family could have been killed in that blast. Unlikely, but very possible. Dad had always wanted to make a trip there, with the whole family. And that was one of the reasons I was so sensitive to children getting hurt in stuff like that. Hurt, or worse. My eldest sister had been pregnant when the whitecoats kidnapped me. I never met my niece. Any of the young kids I saw, _anywhere_, could be her.

Grr. Sometimes my life could truly suck. But yet we all trudge onwards anyway. I think we'd all die if it weren't for sarcasm, black humour, and witty comebacks. Ooh, and roundhouse kicks.

The next day was a weekend, and we were all quite hungry, and pretty cranky, from not enough sleep the night before.

"So, what now?" Natalca asked as cheerfully as she could.

"I interrogated the Voice, detective style. I think I can find it now." Max declared.

"We've heard that before." I murmured in Iggy's ear.

Iggy snickered, and Max shot us a glance as she continued.

"It's about forty miles east of the city, actually quite close to the border of India. Apparently this School specializes in modifying animals, so that's why it's in the middle of nowhere."

Max's words (especially the forty miles part) made us all groan.

Fang rolled his eyes and said, "Come on, you lazy group. At least we don't have to walk."

He was entirely right about that.

On second thought, I think I _may_ have enjoyed walking just a bit more. Ever flown through seven clouds in the course of _one_ mile, and continued for another thirty-nine miles?

No? I advise you to keep it that way. It is an experience you may just want to forfeit.

Clouds are not fluffy, or made of cotton candy. They are wet and cold, and render your vision useless. Hence the reason all elev- _nine_ of us were freezing, soaked through, and very grumpy.

"Max, if you are wrong and we flew out here for nothing, I am going to kill you." Natalca said matter-of-factly, teeth nearly chattering.

Natalca had always hated the cold. I grinned, summoning my power and channelling it to my hands, feeling my skin heat, and then I let it out in a burst, sending it in her direction. She hissed in surprise and wheeled away, then yelled my name.

"What?" I said indignantly. "I was just trying to warm you up. And I don't smell any singed feathers, do you?"

Nudge giggled and, in an attempt to distract us, said, "Max, how much farther?"

"It should be anywhere here now, sweetheart."

Fang glanced at Natalca, and, as concisely as always, asked, "Radar?"

She blinked and then veered left, the rest of us following like a flock of…well, birds.

And sure enough, she was entirely right, the familiar, yet horrible, building soon came into view. Low, white, slightly run-down looking—yup, it was a School, all right.

"Ig, Gaz." Max said shortly.

I smiled at Iggy as he cackled, letting his blonde hair fall into his bright blue eyes as he pulled his pack off his back and conferred slightly with Gaz before they made a decision and both yelled, "Hit the dirt!"

Oh, we hit the dirt, all right. We all folded our wings in and let ourselves plummet. For a few moments all I saw was the red of my wings before we snapped our wings out and glided, so close to the ground I could almost reach with my hand.

Then there was a huge, ear-splitting, thunderous roar, and shrapnel rocketed into the sky. We pinned ourselves to the ground to avoid being hit, and I felt Iggy's body beside me, hard and warm and safe.

As if on cue, we all raised our heads and looked around at each other, making sure no one was hurt. Everyone looked fine, and then Angel suddenly frowned and cocked her head to the left.

"Something's coming." She murmured.

Fang and Max dropped into battle crouches, Natalca leaped atop a boulder, Iggy swung into a tree, and J.J. and I soared into the sky. Gazzy and Nudge went back to back, looking around wildly.

Angel _tsk_ed softly. "Not like that, you guys. Like…a _train_! That's it! There's a train coming! Can we please stay to see it?"

The word 'train' made me look around, searching for tracks. Sure enough, twenty, maybe thirty feet off was a set of train tracks. At one point the tracks split off into a turn, and I squinted, trying to determine whether the tracks were set to go straight or turn. The pole thingy looked like it was set to straight.

I looked back at the young girl. The excited light in Angel's adorable, clear blue eyes was so cute I had to fight not to go _awww_.

Max debated for a moment, then glanced at the smoking remains of the School and said, "I don't think any Erasers are going to pop out of _that_, so sure, why not?"

Angel grinned and Nudge smiled happily. Gazzy rubbed his hands together, and I could just see he couldn't wait to try to determine how the mechanics of the train worked. And so we waited.

J.J. joined Natalca on her boulder, and I saw them talking to each other quietly, fingers laced. Max and Fang began to spar. Iggy jumped down from his tree and came over to me, kissing my forehead lightly.

"Hey, I can see it!" Angel shouted, ecstasy clear in her voice. Gazzy cheered and Nudge jumped up with excitement as the train breached the horizon.

"Have they never seen trains before?" I asked, somewhat bewildered by their excitement.

Iggy chuckled as he wrapped his arms around my waist from behind. He shrugged and said, "From the air, maybe. Never this close up."

That was weird. But on the other hand, I was a girl born and raised in Manitoba prairies, where trains were frequent in certain areas.

Suddenly Natalca shrieked. I whirled, fists clenched, eyes wild. She was standing on the rock, body tense, eyes wide and staring.

"There's _another one_!" she shouted.

At first I didn't realize the problem. But then I looked to the west, and saw what she meant.

There was another train.

Coming the _opposite direction_.

On the _same track_.

And they were going _fast_. The distance between them had already been halved.

And those were _passenger_ trains. Which meant there was people on them.

_Many_ people. And they were going to crash.

In a flash I was in the air, streaking towards the switch-bar. If I could throw the switch in time, the train coming from the east would turn.

I _had _to get there.

I felt Natalca and Iggy right beside me, winging me, having come to the same conclusion.

Max screamed our names from behind.

Iggy POV

Shannon threw herself into the air in the blink of an eye. Natalca was right after her, streaking along beside her. I raced beside them.

All of us had the same target. We knew that switch had to be thrown. I heard Fang telling the younger three to get out of here.

He didn't want them seeing the trains (and therefore the people inside them) going _smoosh_. Or worse, _us _going _smoosh_.

Max screamed our names from behind, screaming at us to stop. At least I thought that's what she said. I really wasn't listening.

Until I heard the word _trap_. I snapped my head around, looking over my shoulder.

And saw a very familiar scene. Max, with a battle light in her eyes, kicking a creature with the face of a wolf. Fang, snapping an Eraser's neck. Gazzy, hurling bombs. Nudge and Angel tag-teaming them.

And ahead of us, more Erasers. No, they didn't magically pop out of the ground. They were slowly but surely crawling over the _top of the trains_.

It was genius. The Erasers had hidden on the far side of the trains, where we couldn't see them. Now, with nowhere to run, they came to get us.

Oh, _hell_ no.

We didn't have _time _to deal with Erasers. We had trains to stop. Slightly ahead of me, Shannon beat her wings down with a screech, flying harder than she ever had. On her other side, Natalca snarled and shot over the ground. I streaked after them.

Everything slowed down right then. Suddenly the cold, hard logic of it hit me. We had a good twenty feet to go. The trains, with their cargo of innocent humans, were about a hundred feet apart, but they ate up the ground just a little faster than us.

The switch bar was on the opposite side of the tracks. Which meant that if we cut it real close, somebody could really go _smoosh_.

And even if we did manage to get to the bar before the trains collided head on, the west train would still blind-side the east train.

I quickly judged the east train to be about eighty feet long. Which meant we had to get there with _at least_ eighty-one feet between the trains.

We weren't going to make it.

Shannon POV

We weren't going to make it. I could see that.

We had to go faster. But my wings were already liquid fire. Beside me, Natalca was _desperately _trying to levitate the switch bar, but it was too heavy, too stiff, too rusted, and too far.

But we weren't giving up.

Ten feet away. I pinned my wings as tight to my body as I could, making my wing span smaller but keeping my speed up. On east train, Erasers perched on the top of the engine.

Everything went into extreme slow motion.

The Erasers leaped from the train, which was right _there_. I ducked and weaved, managing to make it through.

Natalca and Iggy attacked the Erasers with fury.

I glanced towards the east train. In the first passenger car, I saw a face.

A young face, with wide green eyes and bright, curly blonde hair. Terrified. A _child. _Her innocent eyes met mine, and in them I saw everything—somehow she knew I was trying to save her. She _knew_—she was depending on me.

There was a space of about five feet before the east train crossed in front of the switch bar.

_Five feet_.

I went for it. I turned my body sideways, my stomach facing the roaring steam engine as I zipped through.

The bar, so tantalizingly close. My hand reached out, and then my fingers closed around the cool metal.

My whole body slammed into the bar, and I felt something crack inside my body met the metal with all that force—but I didn't even feel it.

The bar slammed into the other position, and the track creaked and changed, diverting the east train's path into a turn.

I don't know _how_ the train didn't topple. It was nearly _on top_ of the track when it moved, but somehow it thundered right on by, and the face of the girl broke into a smile, and I nearly mirrored it, nearly gave into the relief, until I remembered the west train.

Had I made it in time?

I picked myself up off the dusty ground, ignoring the searing pain in my body and launched myself back into the air, eyes wildly lighting on the west train.

I nearly fell back to the earth in despair. The fight went out of me.

No way were the trains going to miss each other.

No way.

I was right.

With a horrible, ear-splitting screech of metal ripping and rending more metal, the west train slammed into the side of the east train.

My heart sank even lower as the whole east train became like a string of dominoes and toppled onto it's side, skidding and screaming over the ground, hitting bumps and slamming back to the ground. Glass shattered; metal screeched….

People screamed.

The west train's engine got stuck somehow under the side of the east train when it fell, and the whole engine, with all its speed and momentum, went completely vertical, nose to the ground. The rest of the train followed, before it slammed back into the hard, unforgiving ground with a sound so terrible I wanted to die.

More glass shattered. Any vestiges of control or composure I had shattered with it. More metal screeched—my heart echoed it.

More people screamed. I screamed with them, their voices full of terror, my voice full of rage.

And more blood spilled.

We had been beaten.

We had lost the deadly race.

I really don't know what to say….besides Yes, I am aware it has been nearly a whole year since I updated.

Hehe. Sorry 'bout that.

***SanraitaFang***


End file.
